Surfing
History
Part 3: Evolution of the Surfboard 1920-1960
Surfboard development took a quantum leap in the periods between 1920-1960. Surfboards became lighter and more manuverable as the materials used for there construction evolved from redwood to balsa to foam and fiberglass. Surprisingly, these innovations were not pioneered by corporations with their eyes on profit but by a small group of eccentric hard-core surfers who simply wanted high-performance equipment.
The first modern boards were based on the old Hawaiian Alaia and Olo designs. They were constructed of solid redwood, with a length of over 10-15 feet. They weighed well over 100 pounds and were fin-less. Turning was accomplished by either dragging the left or right leg in the water!
In 1930 Tom Blake, a lifeguard in Santa Monica and super-waterman, innovatived the hollow board cutting the surfboards weight roughly in half. Tom soon began winning all of the existing paddling/surfing competitions and his hollow design was eventually adapted by United States lifeguards as the best method of saving lives in the surf.
Despite Tom Blake's hollow board design the typical surfboard of the late 1920s was still a solid redwood from 6 to 9 feet long, flat bottomed, with the edges just barely turned up on the bottom side, and the board had no rocker whatsoever (bottom curb running from nose to tail). The problem with these boards was that they could only ride gentle rolling surf. Once one decided to trim left or right across a steep wave the tail would "slide ass" which meant the back of the board would slide around in front of the surfer dumping him of. This limited surfing to the gentle rolling waves of San Onofre and Waikiki.
John Kelly, born and raised around Diamond head where the waves were steeper and more powerful than Daimond Head tried to find a solution to this problem. He took an axe and narrowed the tail of his redwood board and added a deep vee into the bottom third of his board. This allowed Kelly and his crew to surf hollower and bigger waves because the tail would not "slide ass". They were trimming across plunging breakers and surfing waves once thought impossible to ride. Many surfers were astonished by Kelly and soon adapted his surfboard design.
During the immediate post war period Bob Simmons and Joe Quigg experimented with fiberglass and foam. Foam was very light weight but very porous and thus absorbed water readily. Fiberglass was light and strong and solved this problem by sealing the foam preventing the surfboard from becoming waterlogged. The result was a light weight surfboard that was very manuverable and relatively cheap to produce. Hot-Dogging was born! Surfers were not only trimming left or right across breakers but zigzaging across waves as if they were riding a rollercoaster. They also gracefully walked up and down their boards and "Hanging Ten" came into vogue. In this way surfings popularity skyrocketed. Ironically this was due to the innovations of a few eccentric, non-conformist surfers.
Stay
tuned to Part 4 of this series: The 60's: Surfings Classic Longboard Era.